Book Creator- One of the Best Tools Around!
I got an update from Book Creator this past week, and yet again- they are making their product better, more accessible and easier for students and teachers to use. Now they have added voice search, image attribution and the ability for teachers to block image results, if needed. You can read all about these wonderful updates here. They have linked up with Pixabay for CC images and now there is even a button for image attribution.
Voice search is very cool, especially for ELL students and our younger grades. It works in maps too! Oh, and did I mention you can search in over 120 languages? Check out the short little video below. Need to learn more about this great tool? They have free webinars coming right up! Genially
Matt Miller shared a blog post co-authored by Manny Curiel and Karly Moura called 15 Ways to Use Genially in the Classroom. Now, I have to admit, I don' t use this tool, but I was intrigued and checked it out. It is a presentation tool that you can use instead of/in addition to PowerPoint or Google Slides. It offers cool templates and if you take some time to go down through the 15 ideas presented, has lots of potential. So... if you are looking for another tool to use, want to add this one to your list of tools to check out this summer... here you go. There is a free version and then, of course, a premium version. Read more aboutthese ideas here, and check out the video below.
CodeBlocks
Note- I also found his excellent course on Circuit Playground on MakeCode, which is really cool as I am taking an all day course on the circuit playground this coming Saturday...
Scratch Jr Connect
This is a new online resource for teachers and students to both find projects in Scratch Jr and to contribute to the growing resource. There are projects from around the world!
Canva and TeacherMade
Richard Byrne recently posted an excellent idea- combining the worksheets from Canva with TeacherMade. What a great combination! You can read more about it here, and check out his video below.
0 Comments
Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month
With the focus on racist attacks on Asian and Asian Pacific people of late, and being that May is Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month, Learning for Justice referenced this lesson plan, posted last fall that you may find helpful. PBS, as well as many others offer great resources as well.
Great ideas from Dr. Torrey Trust's Students
UMass's Dr. Torrey Trust always shares the best stuff! She recently shared this great collection of final project ideas from her students.
Enjoy!
Seterra Geography Games
Not sure where I saw this link recently, but Seterra is a really neat site to customize and play geography games. Check it out here.
New Text Overlay Options in Google Docs
Finally! This just came through my feed this morning... you can now position text over an image in Google Docs! Here's the update from Google Workspaces, Richard Byrne over at FreeTech4Teachers is on top of it and already has a post on how to use it.
Virtual Libraries from @msmteaches
There are some amazing teachers who freely share their work and one that I would like to call attention to is @msmteaches. She has created an amazing amount of great material that she shares on her web site. Check out her virtual libraries!
https://sites.google.com/view/msmteaches/virtual-libraries. Seriously- check this out: 186 slides of more than 4,100 books and nearly 300 drawing tutorials News from Alice Keeler
Alice Keeler's knowledge and enthusiasm are always welcome in my email feed! This morning she not only shared about Automagical Forms- a really cool way to take your worksheets, pdf, docs and flip them right over to Google Forms with no copy/paste, but she also created a short little video to show how the new Auto-save feature works in Google forms. See below.
Caveat on Automagical forms... it is free to try- only 6 pages. Then it's something you or your district has to pay for. Check the pricing structure here. Here's thehow-to guide. Marathon Kids Connect
I was looking through the EdTech Digest lists of winners for this year and saw this one for runners- Marathon Kids Connect. I wonder if it would be useful for Girls on the Run club or at the MS/HS? It says it's free. I did not investigate the data collection side of it.
Crayola Video Series
Shannon McClintock Miller shared some great info about the Crayola video series recently. It looks like it's on Facebook- not YouTube. Here's Shannon's post to tell you more about it.
Matt Bergman - Infusing Tech
Nice interview of Matt Bergman on tech integration. Made me remember to post a link to Matt's post for this cool puzzle maker. "I'm a Puzzle is a great site that you can use to piece together a custom puzzle for students. Whether you are giving students a preview about a topic or want to put together a clue for a scavenger hunt, this a great free resource for you to use!"
Google TakeOut
Still not sure about how to get your data from Google Drive? Here's another video to show you how.
Scratch
Last week was Scratch week! There were so many amazing projects posted online. Scratch just keeps getting better and better! Mitch Resnick posted this fun project. Try it out.
Wakelet
Wakelet community week is right around the corner. If you haven't checked out Wakelet yet- there's lots of great opportunities. Check it out here.
Tech Tips
Today is the day to celebrate reading! I never thought it would be anything controversial, but some really wonderful things have come out of the ongoing Seuss controversy. Many teachers and librarians are working hard to diversify their collections. Working to recognize the limitations of our collections, of the selections we choose for our classes is important. There are now some excellent resources to help teachers do this.
NEA has created a site to help you find more resources, whether you are in person or doing this virtually.
Learning for Justice (formerly Teaching Tolerance) has created several tools to help include diverse voices in your collections. You can read more about that here.
Reading Rockets has a nice list of links to check to help you diversify your collection, partnering with NEA and with Colorín Colorado
Check it out here.
Colorful Pages offers a different approach, with a unit plan and a series of books to read all week. Check out their info here.
Take some time to explore books read by the authors.
Ideas to Share
Scratch has a new place to play with new features called Scratch Lab. I was reading about this in an article on medium. There are a couple of cool new blocks to play with- Animated Text blocks and this interactive Face Block. Click on the video link below to go try it out yourself...
or go to https://lab.scratch.mit.edu/face/ or https://lab.scratch.mit.edu/text/
Edcamp Cardigan resources
I didn't get to go to this virtual edcamp over the weekend- but Erin did! I'm sure she will have more to share, but here's a collection of 51 items created by Bruce Reicher @breicher from this day long conference. If you are looking for ideas to diversify your collection- check out the resources below. As always, librarians are the gods and goddesses of organizing information!
Google sunsetting Tour Creator and ExpeditionsMany of you probably got the email from Google stating that they are retiring Google Tour Creator and Google Expeditions this summer. These are great tools to use, but rather than be sad about the sunsetting of them, Donnie Piercey created this nice tutorial to show you how to do something very similar in PearDeck. Check it out. Wizer AddonFor those who are using Wizer.me for pdf annotation, you may have already seen this, but Wizer just added a Google Drive add-on that lets you quickly convert PDFs that are in your Google Drive into online worksheets on Wizer. Richard Byrne of FreeTech4Teachers explains it all here. Looking for new dramatic ways to present science topics? Check out Frank Gregorio's YouTube channel. "This channel is dedicated to providing teachers and students a powerful new resource to combat student apathy. Here, you will find dramatic, visually stunning video "trailers" in the natural sciences choreographed to powerful music, designed to motivate and inspire students at the beginning of a lesson to the wonders of Biology, Earth Sciences, Physics, Astronomy, Chemistry, Environmental Science and Math. Over 90 million students and teachers worldwide have seen these videos to date, and their comments highlight their exceptional value to education. " Free Stories and EbooksThis was a new resource for me- Clarkness.com. It is a site with tons of free stories and free ebooks for the beginning reader. There are 1,519 online stories, 117 ebooks and 64 personalized stories available. A similar site: Reading Hawk Library also has free downloadable ebooks and Dolch sight word story collections for the beginning reader, offering 4 ebooks, and 45 story collections. Another incredible teacher created resource for free read alouds is Mrs. Lemansky's Library. Check it out here. These are accessible via Google Slides. She has even more on her YouTube channel. FlipGrid ARHave you explored AR in Flipgrid with your students yet? Try it out with this free offer to make Thanksgiving "REALI-Turkeys" Help your students focus on things they can be thankful for with this fun writing activity. Flipgrid "REALITurkeys" gives students the chance to showcase their voice through the fun of Flipgrid's augmented reality. Simple write, record and then batch download student AR codes from the educator dashboard. Cut, paste and hang to share! Grab the free template here! How do you create FlipgridAR videos? Resources from PBS Learning MediaPBS always offers quality programming and great resources for educators. Have you seen the Learn Along Bingo packets? The Teacher Planning Kits? If not, check them out here.
Need more Turkey?Maytal, over at CreateCodeLoad is offering a free Scratch game, along with complete directions, even videos to help you and your class create a Thanksgiving turkey game in Scratch. Check it out here. Hour of CodeThis week most of my time and energy has gone into going through some of the new features on Code.org and a few of the many third party educator resources. This is such an amazing resource, and so much of it is free. This year I decided to change up the offerings for grades 4-6 and use the time to introduce microbits. Across the board, the students did a great job. We'll have to look at investing in more of these, as well as more peripherals- sensors, servos, etc. I'm looking forward to seeing what these students can create. K-2 students worked on the iPads with challenges in Scratch Jr and Kodable. Third graders were the first class to try out the new Dance Party. It was an exercise in close reading; those pesky directions! All of this from Day 1... Here's the link to this year's HES Hour of Code site. Google Expeditions GuideI've written about Google Expeditions before, but Nick LaFave has created an excellent guide that you may be interested in. You do not have to have fancy glasses or viewers to see these. This statement was important to me: "No Fancy Equipment Required Originally designed for viewing with a virtual reality headset (or Google Cardboard and a phone), expeditions now work on any mobile device (iPad, tablet, smartphone); just click “View Full Screen” when you open the expedition." Check out Nick's guide here. He also has a great detailed spreadsheet with a searchable list of all available expeditions. Holiday BreakoutsAdam Bellow posted a link today to showcase the Holiday Breakouts that are available on the platform. It made me realize that I haven't done any breakouts at HES so far this year. We'll have to pick a couple to try. Insight Mission ActivitiesWow! How exciting! A new Mars landing! These are just a few of the resources available to teach students K-12 about Mars, about coding and creating. My friend, Adriano CyberParra Parracciani, one of the original members of the Global Educator's group, created this template in Scratch for you and your students to try. JPL has a very detailed project, again using Scratch, with various tasks to complete. You can check out that one here. You can find some great NGSS aligned K-12 lessons about Mars here. And of course the NASA Journey of a Lifetime Resources are here. Looking for PD?Well, I can't make to a teeny percentage of all the wonderful conferences offered. Luckily some share their resources online. VSTE, down in Virginia, just finished up and shared these sessions. I will have take notes on this one: 10 Things to do When the Wi-Fi goes Wonky Don't forget about the 12 Days of PD from The Birdville ISD down in Texas https://sites.google.com/g.birdvilleschools.net/12daysummit/home Ditch Summit is coming soon! This is where you get your ticket. It's free.
"The Ditch That Textbook Digital Summit is a FREE virtual event from December 14-31. It brings together some of the brightest minds in education to discuss technology, pedagogy and more." Multiple Google Accounts?This week a teacher asked me about the logins on Google accounts. Since most of us have at least two logins- school and personal, it's important to know and to control which account you are in. I noticed this just last week as I created a doc in my personal account and then shared- unsuccessfully- to students, who cannot share/view out of district docs. I have used the directions Kasey Bell shared a few years back. Alice Keeler also has a really nice step by step. My extensions are different on different accounts. You can also change your backgrounds, etc- to make it much more apparent to you. Check out Kasey's how-to video below- or if you like written directions to follow- go to Alice's blog. Advice from AustinI get Austin Kleon's weekly newsletter. Admittedly, I skim it, rarely reading the whole thing. But, this past week, I actually spent time on and enjoyed his post "We are verbs, not nouns". Go ahead. Read a short article. Less than 5 minutes. You'll like it. Cool ToolsThe tools that caught my eye this week, include physics simulations, digital math and a really nice article about using Book Creator and Adobe Spark.
3. KQED had a really nice article featuring Holly Clark and Tanya Avrith: How To Use Chromebooks For Powerful Creation in School. Great examples of both tools. Need more PD?Did you miss EdTech Team's ANZ Summit last weekend. Have no fear- it's available on YouTube. Check out the line- up here. Here's the blurb, "Introducing the theme CREATE, we’re mixing it up to unveil new and ever-evolving content on the most relevant topics and learning principles in the classroom today, including mindfulness, accessibility, creativity and personalized learning. Expect engaging sessions covering everything from Creating with Chromebooks to Creating Real World Problem Solvers and Teacher Leaders." The Birdville ISD down in Texas is hosting a 12 Days of Innovation Summit. Tony Hylander posted about this on the Future Ready Instructional Coaches group. Sign up is FREE! You will get an inspirational video via email each day. Our featured speakers include Matt Miller (Ditch That Textbook & Google Teacher Tribe), Damen Lopez (No Excuses University), Sean Gaillard (The Pepper Effect), and more! For each video you will have the opportunity to reflect and earn a certificate of professional learning. Sign up today! https://sites.google.com/g.birdvilleschools.net/12daysummit/home WMass Scratch MeetupI'll just repost their announcement here. If you have never tried Scratch, if you are a Scratch expert...all are welcome. Especially with the upcoming release in January of Scratch 3.0- Perfect Timing!
https://www.facebook.com/events/1897230950372592/ "Calling all educators, K-12 teachers, out-of-school leaders, tinkerers, and makers. We've got tech prizes, Scratch 3.0 updates, and a great learning community for you to join at the upcoming Meetup. And...we will be joined by a leader from the ScratchEd team at Harvard. Don't miss this opportunity to hear from the ScratchEd team first hand and share tips, tricks and questions in real time! Scratch Meetups are designed like an unconference. We will build the agenda together and dig into topics that you want to learn about. Join us for a unique learning opportunity. Share your Scratch experience, meet new colleagues, and stay for dinner. If you are a seasoned teacher looking to learn new Scratch tips and tools, or someone recently inspired to learn about Scratch, this is the learning opportunity for you. Certificates of participation will be available for teachers who need documentation. Feel free to bring friends! RSVP at https://www.meetup.com/ScratchEd-WMass/" Global Ed & EmpathyOne of the most effective ways I know to foster empathy is to demonstrate the similarities we share. Global education projects provide a great pathway. One of the nicest projects I came across last week is the Kindness Rock project. Our 4th grade teachers have embraced both global ed and several kindness projects which actually just enhance and continue their longstanding excellent class projects. For those who haven't seen the Kindness Rock project: Two of my champions of Global Ed have been hard at work this past week. Both Lucy Gray and Julie Lindsay have new projects in the works. Julie, over at Flat Connections, is offering a new PD program for educators that looks really interesting. After having taken her Flat Classroom course (twice), I know that I can recommend her professional development offerings for all who are interested in expanding their horizons with their students. This new series is called Playbooks and is divided up into 4 strands. You can read much more about it here. Flat Connections is also starting a new round of projects for students. The new project this round is Windows to the World for grades 3-6, as well as the familiar favorites. This looks like an updated, revamped model of the A Week in the Life project, which I helped moderate 5 or 6 years ago. Lots of fun, lots of learning. Check out all the projects that are on offer here. These are well managed, global projects that really help you and your students connect around the world. Lucy Gray is on the road again, currently at TCEA in Texas, then moving on to Mumbai, D.C and Boston. She and Steve Hargadon offer an incredible wealth of opportunities for teachers and students at all levels. Check out her upcoming work here. Scratch 3.0 PreviewFor all of the Scratch fans out there... it's almost here. Scratch 3.0 is due to be released in August, but... you can preview it now! Check it out herescratch.mit.edu/preview-faq. Lots of info on the FAQ page too. Even more info is available on the wiki. This is also the summer of the Scratch conference at the MIT media lab in Cambridge. Lots of fun, lots of learning. Amazing group of international educators. I can honestly say that I have met more people from other countries at the Scratch conferences I have attended than at ISTE conferences. I can sit and talk with folks from across the Connecticut River or sit and chat with friends from Mexico, France, Russia, Sweden, or Brazil. More info here. Curation, Fact-Checking and More...I had tagged a great article from Joyce Valenza- one of the world's greatest librarians- to share and then I listened to an excellent webinar from the folks over at Common Sense Media about a new game they are creating for middle and high school... but then I saw this image and post from Cult of Pedagogy by Jennifer Gonzalez. I am a dumper. I'll give you the links and maybe do a second blog post on our snow day tomorrow- but enough! I know I tend to overwhelm teachers I work with at times, but at least then I can go in to the classroom and help, can sit down and talk it through. After reading the examples she cited- oh, yeah. That's me. So... maybe tomorrow. |
AuthorMaureen Tumenas Archives
June 2021
|